Team steps it up on the power play
The Sharks hope they’ve found the right formula for greater success on their power play, and it partly involves splitting up the two most valuable members of the man advantage units.
After starting the season 0 for 15 through three-plus games, the Sharks have converted on three of their last five power-play chances, including going 2 for 3 in Thursday’s 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.
In the first period, Kevin Labanc scored at the 11:30 mark from a sharp angle and Patrick Marleau added another with 17 seconds to go, redirecting an Erik Karlsson shot from the point past Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford.
“It looked good tonight, getting pucks to the net,” Sharks center Joe Thornton said after the win.
“You knew it was kind of coming, just things weren’t going in. It was just a matter of time. Tonight, two big ones helped us win the game.”
The Sharks’ power play had its struggles in a pair of losses to the Vegas Golden Knights to open the regular season and another loss to the Anaheim Ducks last Saturday. They were they 0 for 14 at that point with three shorthanded goals allowed.
There were a few culprits: The Sharks weren’t gaining the offensive zone with enough speed at times, and had trouble setting up and getting shots through to the net against some aggressive penalty killing units. They were also without Evander Kane, now a key part of the first unit with Joe Pavelski gone.
Monday, a day before the Sharks played in Nashville, they split up Karlsson and Brent Burns into separate power play units in practice. Against the Predators, after one failed try, Kane scored the Sharks’ first power-play goal of the season, redirecting a Logan Couture shot past Pekka Rinne. Burns got the secondary assist.
Both Karlsson and Burns are so used to handling the puck inside the blue line that when they were together at the start of the season, it made things a bit awkward as far as where they positioned themselves. Karlsson stayed mostly on the blue line and while Burns moved closer to a trigger position near the top of the circle on the right side of the goalie.
“I don’t want to answer for (Burns), but he’s been in one spot for a long time and I think he feels comfortable in that quarterback position,” Couture said before Tuesday’s game. “Those two, they do work well together, but when you can put them on different units, it creates a quality second unit as well.”
Now the Sharks have gone back to a look they featured quite a bit last season, with Karlsson on one unit and Burns on the other. The Sharks’ power play was ranked sixth in the NHL in 2018-19 at 23.7 percent.
When Marleau scored his power play goal Thursday, he was on the ice with Thornton, Dylan Gambrell, Timo Meier and Karlsson, who had come on for Burns. The first unit mainly features Kane, Karlsson, Labanc, Couture and Tomas Hertl.
Sharks coach Pete DeBoer stressed in training camp that the power play units will have a variety of looks all season. But what the Sharks have now appears to be working.
“It allows you to have an elite guy at the most important position on each unit, which is the guy at the top,” Pete DeBoer said Tuesday. “Like I said. we’re going to have different looks depending on health and personnel and who we have in and out. You’re going to see a lot of different formations there.”
Marleau spans the decades
Per Sportsnet Stats, Marleau, 40, is the eighth player in NHL history to score a goal in his teens and his 40s with the same franchise. The others, according to Darin Stephens, were Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio, Steve Yzerman, Mario Lemieux, Shane Doan, Ron Francis and Brendan Shanahan.
Marleau’s first career NHL goal came Oct. 19, 1997 in a 5-3 Sharks loss to the Phoenix Coyotes. His performance Thursday represented his 68th career multi-goal game, and his first with the Sharks since March 21, 2017.
Burns’ 200th
Burns’ goal at the 10:00 mark of the second period was the 145th as a member of the Sharks and the 200th of his NHL career, which began in 2003.
Burns took a faceoff win from Gambrell inside the Blackhawks’ zone, skated to the corner, found some open space and fed the puck in front. It glanced off the glove of Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy and went past Crawford, tying the game at that point 3-3.
“I don’t even know if that counts, does it? I’ll take them,” Burns said. “In a week it’ll be a one-timer, top corner. Hopefully my son’s asleep, he didn’t see it and I can tell him a good story.”